Consider an apple. An apple can be beneficial for health, or can be not(let’s assume it is). Some questions which come up -
- There are better fruits than apple that are more beneficial for health
- Taste of Apple sucks
- Apple doesn’t have good appearance
- Apple doesn’t smell good.
We notice the following things -
- There will be things which are better than apple in a certain aspect(eg -health), but does that make apple useless? Ob
- If Apple is best in certain aspect(eg-health), then it will not be best in others(eg - taste, smell)
- Even if it is best in all the aspects(eg-health, taste, smell) - that’s not possible. Taste, smell are subjective. Change from people to people. Even health for that matter.
- Hypothetically, assume a central agency comes up which says Apple is the best fruit in terms of health, taste and smell. If it says so, it must be. But even if it’s so, what matters is do we think it is? Our world is the stories we tell ourselves. So even if something is best in the world, it can suck for us becuase that is what we think so.
What I am trying to say is that assigning a good/bad label to apple is not correct. If some people love it, there is a high possibility that other hate it. Lovers focus on apple’s best aspect(health), while haters focus on just the bad aspects(eg-taste). But none are close to the reality. It is what it is.
Okay, so now you might agree that labelling apple is not correct. But everyday we lable things 1000 times more complex than the apple, which change over time, which behaves different in different situations. Even worse, when we make our opinion on the basis of the stories of others.
Eg - He/She is stupid, Why did I even open Linkedin, Product managers are useless, India is a poor country, VCs are …
Stop labelling. You are basing your judgement on only one aspect(high possibility you might have judged it wrong). Even if your judgement is true, no one aspect can define a complex object. Okay, if you still don’t agree, atleast stop expecting other people to agree with you. Everyone perveice things differently.
PS - I also many times label people and objects, and am working to reduce it.